| 9/21/1999 | |
| Aswan, or "Feed me Seymore..." | |
| We awoke in Aswan. After breakfast, we checked out of the boat and headed to some sites. Our first stop was the Aswan high dam. On the way there we crossed the old dam. It was pretty cool. Anyway, the high dam is an engineering marvel. It stands ~350 feet above the water line, and ~4000 below. It generates the vast majority of the electricity used throughout all of Egypt. It is a military installation, and hence photography is restricted a bit, but I still got some great shots. Following the visit there, we went to the lotus flower tower that the Ruskis gave to Egypt when the dam project was completed. It was huge. I was very impressed. I wanted to ride the elevator to the top, but the bastards have a lock on it. Our next stop was the island of Angilika. This is where they relocated the Temple of Isis, which had resided on the island of Philae. The temple had to be moved when the Aswan dam was built, because Philae was under water. Incidentally, we got to see Philae because the water level was low. At any rate, we got the to island via an old, nasty smelling (our old friend diesel fumes), loud, vibrating, motorized launch. I was very concerned about being hit by flying shrapnel when the thing tossed a rod, but all I got was numb feet from the vibrations. The temple was, again, very impressive. As we were walking up the ramp to land, the French were coming down. The one bitch has no idea how close she came to taking a swim in the Nile. She was all lined up, leaning over, and being French. One slight hip and... Anyway, this temple, like many others we had seen, was defaced by the Copts. Again, some members doubted that this was the case, believing that there was no evidence to support this position, and that instead, the icons on the walls were originally carved this way. To these people I have a few things to say (don your peril-sensitive sunglasses now): wake up and smell the coffee. The only temples that were defaced were those occupied by the Copts. If they were originally carved with, as Mike would say, leprosy, wouldn't this be consistent across all of them? Next, THEY SIGNED THEIR WORK! There were Coptic crosses carved into the very walls that were defaced; there were dedications, carved in Greek, claiming the places. And finally, to dispel the belief that Christians are innocent, I have four things of which to remind you: Crusades I, II, and III; the Spanish Inquisition; the conversion of the Norse Yule into Christmas; and, finally, Catholic school. This certainly is not the only atrocity committed in the name of Jesus Christ. That said, on with the story... Our next stop was the granite quarry. This is where much of the stone used in building the structures of ancient Egypt was mined. There lies the unfinished obelisk. While this was not the most exciting stop on our tour, it was certainly worth seeing (of course, I like to see EVERYTHING). This was the end of our touring for the day. We headed to our hotel to check in and grab lunch. Boy was that a fiasco. First, they didn't have our rooms ready, so we bypassed that and went straight into lunch. Shahinaz mentioned that we could get sandwiches poolside. This sounded 1/2 good. I thought sitting out in the 100 degree heat next to a pool, without a swimming suit was a tease. Anyway, we determined, after about 10 minutes, that sitting outside was a bad idea, so we moved into "The Orangery", where the AC is. Our outdoor waiter brought in our check and told the indoor waiter what the deal was, but it still took us over an hour and a half to get through lunch. It was terrible. The waiters and Maitre'd were running around in a state of utter chaos. All we ordered were burgers and a club sandwich; this ain't rocket science. We repeatedly asked about the status of our meal, with no intelligible response. They eventually started picking up stuff from the buffet ad putting it on our table, trying to appease us. Finally, three of us were fed (with terrible food mind you), but Alicia was still waiting. Finally, hers came. By then Chris and Mike were done, so they went to check on the status of our rooms. As they were leaving, the waiter brought the checks. As usual, they were inclusive of the 12% gratuity. Mike asked him "are these whole bills?" To which he replied "Yes". Mike responded "that's not right", the waiter agreed and walked away. A few minutes later, the very apologetic restaurant manager groveled for forgiveness, which he wasn't granted until he gave us free lunch (which was much more than we expected or required; we just wanted drinks. Anyway, Alicia and I bolted for the lobby in search of our mates. We didn't find them so instead we went upstairs to see if they had gone to the rooms. I ran into Mike and Chris in the hallway. They were shocked to hear that I knew about the free lunch. Apparently they had spoken with the manager of the restaurant and extorted a free lunch out of him with threats of loss of Globus contract (we were, by no means, the only pissed off customers from our group). Apparently the waiter is going to be buying us lunch. That should take about six months to pay off. I felt kind of bad. I just hope it was the indoor waiter, since he was the fuckup; the outdoor waiter did his part. After the trauma, we lounged by the pool and relaxed for a while. The pool was gorgeous, large, cool, and refreshing (which was totally unexpected after our experiences in Florida; they must have water coolers on that thing). I made an attempt to get a tan, but to no avail (surprise surprise). Finally we got cleaned up and went to our felucca ride. A felucca is a mid-sized sailboat. It took two of them to hold our group. The captain of our fine vessel "docked" the two boats and tied them together. Then they started to sing. They were really very good. Then they got us to sing. Then they got us to dance. It was a lot of fun. As we approached our destination, a tiny, tiny boat with two children aboard, pulled up along-side. Started singing "aloueta" (sp? that frog song anyway; I was very offended), but the boat captain quickly yelled "American American". They instantly started in with "row row row your boat" it was hilarious. Anyway, we landed on Botanical Island. As you may have surmised from it's name, the island houses the botanical gardens. It was a most tranquil place. And for once, the temperature was pleasant. There were a lot of very unusual plant varieties. Beautiful flowers, trees and yes, A SHRUBBERY (dahhhhhhhhhhhnt!), with a two level effect, and little path running down between them (a path, a path). Upon our return, the felucca driver made an offer to allow us to come to his Nubian village, and see the way that they live. Frankly, after the encounter at the stoneworker's house, I'd prefer not, thank you. Our next stop was dinner; at the same place that we had lunch. The restaurant staff recognized us instantly (ruh roh Rorge). The whole time there was at least one waiter swarming around the table. Our shit didn't hit the floor before they were there to scoop it up. It was overwhelming. Interestingly, they gave us comment cards to fill out after the meal. I made sure to tell them what I thought. Anyway, during dinner we took the opportunity to snap pictures of our group members. After a pit-stop to change shoes and stuff, we were off into the night in Aswan. We had decided that another sound and light show was uncalled for, and hence we went to the bazaar. You'd think that with all of the complaining we've done about the high-pressure sales and haggling that we would stay away from these places. But somehow we couldn't control ourselves. I was actually starting to get into this whole haggling thing. Anyway, our typical team, Mike, Alicia, Chris, and myself, entered the arena. By some weird happenstance, we were running out of film, so we started at the camera (ok, film) shop. There was no 400 speed to be found, so we bought 200. The dude was very insistent that we buy five instead of four, and as usual, Chris supported the merchant (who's married to whom here anyway?). We left with five rolls. In our wanderings, we picked up some souvenirs and presents, saw some live baby crocodiles, illegal ivory, and had our women gawked at by many a local. Both of them were repeatedly complimented, "beautiful eyes", "queen of the Nile", "nice henna baby", and so forth. I was starting to question the cultural significance of the henna tattoo. In the end, we stopped to relax with a drink and a smoke, then returned to the hotel for the evening. |
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